THE NEW YORK TIMES: It’s hardly surprising that France would be furious over losing a multibillion-dollar arms deal with Australia, all the more so because it believes it was blindsided as Canberra, Washington and London secretly worked to get a different deal for themselves.
But recalling ambassadors, as France did from Washington and Canberra, a step just short of breaking relations, is not normal behavior among allies, no matter how miffed they may be. The lost sale of a dozen submarines is painful, but not fatal to the French arms industry, especially as the hulls and engines were to be built in Australia and the electronics and armaments were to come from Lockheed Martin, an American company. And, as the Australians argue, France should have seen it coming: The diesel-powered submarines France offered were no longer what confronting a rising China required.
What really got the French seeing red was something else. It was being callously shunted aside by the United States and its Anglophone allies — “les Anglo-Saxons,” as Gen. Charles de Gaulle somewhat disparagingly referred to them — and being excluded from a role in what is shaping up to be the central geopolitical action for decades to come.
The imperious general, whose place in French history and national identity is reflected in the innumerable streets, boulevards and squares bearing his name, left a legacy very much in the background of the furor over the submarine deal, according to Serge Berstein, a noted historian of the de Gaulle era. The common thread, he said, arises from de Gaulle’s conviction that France, even if not a superpower, “retains an important international role by virtue of its presence in all parts of the globe.” In Asia, that includes a long colonial history and control over several islands in the Pacific. » | Serge Schmemann | Tuesday, September 21, 2021
No Wonder the French Are Angry »
